The Two of Swords, Volume 1

by K. J. Parker

  “Look for yourself.”

  Prexil’s head shot up. “Oh God,” he repeated. “Well, there’s absolutely nothing we can do. Scouts!” He ran off towards the gatehouse tower steps. Daxen didn’t follow. He was suddenly very, very tired, and he didn’t want to get in the way. He managed to cross the Yard without getting knocked off his feet, and found himself on the steps of the Sunrise Temple. He looked up at the glowing copper dome. Why not? he thought, and went in.

  The temple was empty. He walked up the long aisle towards the nave, where light streamed in through the precisely angled rose windows and reflected off the gilded walls and floor, to create the sacred illusion of the Well of Fire. Walk into the Well, they promised you, and your sins will be burned away. Daxen grinned. It was worth a try, he supposed. Conscious of his boot heels on the marble, he marched up to the altar and knelt down. He said the words, but his mind was on other things.

  This time, the scouts came back. They brought five men with them.

  “Who the hell,” Prexil demanded, “are you?”

  One of the five unwrapped the scarf that covered his face. He took his time over it. The scarf fell away. “Now just—” Prexil said, and then stopped dead. All Daxen could do was stare. The man was an Imperial.

  “But I thought—” Prexil said.

  “My name,” the man said, “is Genseric. Are you in charge of this circus?”

  An Imperial; from the grey in his beard, somewhere between forty and forty-five. He spoke with an upper-crust Western accent; in fact, he sounded remarkably like Oida, only perhaps a little deeper. “Yes,” Prexil said. “I’m Major Prexil. This is—”

  Genseric nodded. “I know who he is.” He lifted off his helmet and put it on the table. It was an old-fashioned Imperial pattern—four plates riveted into a frame—and covered in off-white canvas glued to the steel. His head was shaved smooth. “Where’s Ixion?”

  “He’s dead,” Daxen said.

  Genseric kept his eyes on Prexil. “And you’re the ranking officer.”

  “Yes. Answer my question. Who are you?”

  Genseric sighed, relaxed a little into the back of his chair. “I’m a constable of the Faculty of Arms.” He shifted slightly. Prexil was looking at his face, so he didn’t see the little gold hammer and anvil that was now visible on the inside of his tunic lapel. “Oh come on,” he said impatiently. “You don’t know—”

  “I do,” Daxen said.

  Prexil gave him a bewildered look. Daxen nodded, it’s all right. Prexil shrugged, leaned back, folded his arms. Slowly, Genseric turned to Daxen and looked at him for a moment. Distaste, Daxen read with surprise, and no attempt to disguise it.

  “You’re lodge soldiers,” Daxen said.

  Genseric liked him even less for that. “Put crudely, yes,” he said. “We’re here to observe, and safeguard craftsmen and lodge property, as far as circumstances allow. Obviously, in this case—”

  “Just a minute,” Prexil said. “Lodge soldiers? What the hell does that mean?”

  The look on Genseric’s face would have poisoned a city. “The Faculty of Arms,” Daxen said quickly. “It’s like an order of chivalry, inside the craft. They have—well, resources of their own.”

  “Like a private army,” Prexil said. He was clearly disgusted.

  “No, not as such,” Daxen said quickly. He realised he knew next to nothing about the Faculty of Arms, except that it existed, and younger sons of impoverished nobles went off to join it. “It’s attached to the University, isn’t it? Like a sort of military academy.”

  “You could say that,” Genseric said. “The Academicians study every aspect of human knowledge and endeavour, including military science. And, in every field we cover, we don’t confine ourselves to the merely theoretical.” He turned slowly to face Daxen; Prexil clearly no longer existed. “We came here to observe the battle between the two Imperial factions,” he said. “Clearly, there was very little we could do. I have three thousand cavalry under my command, and medical and supply units. We were able to assist a small number of craftsmen left wounded on the battlefield; we recovered them and sent them under escort to our colleagues from the Faculty of Medicine. While we were doing this, we heard disturbing rumours about developments among the desert people; we decided to stay here and observe. We witnessed the events at Seusa, but were unable to do anything. Unlike you—” he paused for a moment “—we deduced that the next target would be Erithry. We also deduced that the tribesmen would lure your army into the desert, safely out of the way, while they attacked the city. We got to Erithry as quickly as we could, but since we didn’t dare use the road we made poor time. When we arrived, the city had already been taken, and the evacuation of prisoners—” Daxen started to speak, but Genseric shut him up with a slight gesture of his hand “—was well under way. We met with the tribal leaders and received assurances that the craftsmen among the captives would be treated properly, pending formal ransom negotiations. I sent a note of the agreement to my superiors, who will in due course arrange payment. Then we turned back to see you. We felt you would wish to know what had happened.”

  “For God’s sake,” Prexil shouted. “You knew we’d been decoyed away, but you didn’t send and tell us. That’s appalling.”

  Genseric didn’t look round at him. “This isn’t our jurisdiction,” he said icily. “We don’t interfere. We observe, and we offer assistance to fellow craftsmen, where feasible. I have just arranged for the safety and eventual release of six thousand craftsmen and their families. If it had been left to you, I imagine they would have died, in the desert or as slaves. We came here as a courtesy, to let you know what happened. If you don’t want to hear, we’ll go.”

  Prexil was going to say something; Daxen managed to catch his eye in time. “Six thousand,” he said. “That’s going to cost a lot of money.”

  “Two million.” Genseric dismissed the figure with a tiny shake of his head. “We can afford it.”

  “They left three times that in the Treasury here.”

  Genseric sighed. “You don’t understand,” he said. “That would be stealing. They don’t steal. Ransoms are different: they’re honourable. If you don’t study your enemy, how can you ever hope to deal with him?”

  “You’ve done that,” Daxen said. “Studied them, I mean.”

  “Of course.”

  “And they talk to you.”

  Genseric smiled. “We have full diplomatic relations,” he said. “Our scholars and theirs have been in communication for centuries. That’s how respect is earned. They know we have no quarrel with them.”

  Prexil made an exasperated noise. “You’re on their side.”

  “Prexil, be quiet.” He hadn’t meant it to come out quite like that, but never mind. “I’m sorry,” he said to Genseric. “Major Prexil’s been under considerable strain lately, as you can imagine. It’s been difficult for all of us. The fact is, we don’t know a lot about these people. Not nearly as much as we thought we did, anyway.”

  “You’re out of your depth.” Genseric said it casually, a statement of fact that it would be pointless to deny. At that moment, Daxen would’ve paid good money to be allowed to hit him. “That’s unfortunate. These are difficult people you’re dealing with, complex, sensitive. We’ve known them a long time, but they’re continually surprising us.”

  Daxen looked straight at him. “You are on their side.”

  Quite unexpectedly, Genseric laughed. “Well, if I had to choose,” he said. “Fortunately for all concerned, I don’t. In fact, I’m expressly forbidden to. As I keep telling you, I’m here to observe and help craftsmen. Beyond that I couldn’t go, even if I wanted to.”

  Daxen took a deep breath. He couldn’t remember disliking anyone more than he disliked Genseric at that moment. “Naturally,” he said, “the Blemyan treasury will reimburse you for the ransoms you’ve already paid. I’m officially asking you to use your good offices to negotiate the ransom of the remaining citizens presently in their hand
s. That wouldn’t be taking sides,” he said firmly. “That’d be helping both parties to get what they want.”

  Genseric sighed, shook his head. “You really don’t understand, do you?” He picked up his helmet. “First, we can’t take any money from you, I’d have thought you’d have worked that out by now. And if you think the tribes kidnapped your people with a view to extorting money, you couldn’t be more wrong. They released our craftsmen as a special favour. They accepted the ransom because it would be a sin against their god to part with His property without getting something for Him in return. They don’t want money. They don’t use it, their laws forbid it. If I were to offer them money on your behalf for your people, it’d be an unforgivable insult tantamount to a declaration of war. The ransom payment will be dedicated to the god in a solemn ceremony and then buried somewhere remote in the desert.” He stood up. “As far as they’re concerned your citizens are now divine property, all of them, every man, woman and child in Blemya. That’s good news, because once they’ve captured them they’ll give them food and water and look after them, like they do with their sheep. But the only way you’d ever get them back is by force, and I strongly recommend you don’t try.” He paused for breath; Daxen could see he was struggling to keep his temper. “We’re going to leave now,” he said. “As a gesture of goodwill, I’ll give you some badly needed advice. If you want to try and save your kingdom, get your army on the road and head for the capital. If you’re lucky, you’ll catch them up before they get there. If you honestly believe you can beat them, fight them as soon as possible, though I would suggest you send away all the craftsmen in your army beforehand, tell them to go home to their families. They’ve got a chance. Frankly, you haven’t.”

  Daxen knew what he had to do, but it took him the rest of the day to nerve himself to do it. He summoned a full military council, and formally relieved Prexil of command. In the circumstances, he said, it was his clear duty as the queen’s proxy to lead the army himself. This action was no reflection on anyone present, and he would of course continue to rely on their advice and assistance. The army would march at dawn for the capital. Desperate though their situation was, as far as food and other supplies were concerned, he could see no other reasonable course of action. He was taking command because he wanted it to be unequivocally clear that the responsibility for everything that happened from that point on was his and his alone.

  Prexil waited till he’d finished speaking, then got up and walked away without a word. The rest of them stayed where they were, dead quiet.

  Daxen’s throat was so dry he could barely speak. “Any questions?”

  Long silence; then someone whose name he didn’t know said, “You believe it, then. About the savages.”

  He thought for a moment. “I don’t think we can afford not to,” he said. “If they had the power to do what they did here, we’ve got to assume Genseric was telling the truth. If we stay here and the kingdom falls—” He found he couldn’t complete the sentence. No need, fortunately. He’d made his point.

  There were a few questions about details, practical and sensible. He didn’t know the answers and said so. “I’ll have to leave it to you,” he said. “We all know I’m no soldier. But you’ll all do the best you can.”

  Nobody argued. There were no more questions. He dismissed the council, and they trooped out in silence. Daxen sat down in his folding chair and watched the oil lamp on the table burn itself out. After that, he sat in the dark until the sun rose.

  The next five days were the strangest of Daxen’s life so far, and the loneliest. He rode a white horse at the head of the army, agonisingly arrayed in the late General Ixion’s golden breastplate and helmet. The helmet was too big and the breastplate was too small; the inside edge of the pauldrons chafed his neck raw, so he had to wear a scarf, which he had to change every hour because it became sodden with sweat and chafed even worse; the helmet was padded with four pairs of wool socks to stop it falling over his face, and the sweat pouring down his face made him look as though he was crying his eyes out; fortuitously, this went down very well indeed with the men, who thought he was grieving for Erithry; copious tears together with his bolt-upright seat in the saddle (essential because if he slouched even a little bit the pain in his thighs was unbearable) made him a heroic figure, strong and compassionate in equal measure. The junior officers congratulated him on the fact that the men had awarded him the supreme accolade of a nickname, which meant they really liked him; however, they were curiously reluctant to tell him what it was.

  The supply problem didn’t bother anyone particularly since, as they all assured him, once they reached the wheat belt everything would be fine. And so it was, up to a point. They marched through an endless ocean of wheat, just right for cutting or maybe the tiniest bit gone over. At one point he stopped, dismounted, picked an ear and bit into a few kernels: hard like a nut, no softness or milkiness. And there it was, still standing, uncut; and no human beings to be seen anywhere except for the soldiers. At this time of year the fields should be swarming with men, women and children, frantically busy with the three hardest weeks’ work of the year. Instead, the only movement was explosions of rooks and crows, bursting up out of the laid patches where the weight of the grain had dragged the stalks down and the birds could pitch to feed. They erupted suddenly and unexpectedly, shrieking abuse, thick black clouds of furious movement that dissipated into twisting columns, thick curling smoke in the wind. Each evening the soldiers went out to reap with their swords, trampling trenches in the crop, spoiling five times what they stole; they threshed with their belts over spread-out cloaks, and every boot and garment in the camp was full of sharp, gritty chaff. There was no smoke from burning roofs, no bodies swollen on the road, no riderless horses; no sign that anyone had ever been there at all.

  “It’s all pretty desperate,” young Captain Euxis assured him. “This lot’s not just supposed to feed Erithry, this is the breadbasket for Cumnis and most of the South. If it isn’t cut and carted damn quick, it’s not going to be pretty, that’s for sure.”

  Daxen had figured that much for himself. He’d seriously considered halting the march and sending the men out to harvest the wheat. In his mind he could see the pages of two books; one read, by this sensible act, Daxen wisely secured the vital food supply and saved the kingdom from famine; the other said, meanwhile, as Daxen’s army wasted precious time over their commander’s futile gesture, the enemy column swept remorselessly on through the south, slaughtering and enslaving at will. In the end, he figured that since he had no grain sacks and no carts to carry them on, there was no decision to make. He was painfully aware that this line of reasoning was deeply flawed, but he did his best not to think about it.

  The market town of Tollens was famous for its brassware, its delicate blue and white glazed pottery, the Pauxen opera house, the annual flower festival, its traditional lattice-top meat pies and its distinctively nutty-tasting wheat beer. The gates were open. It was deserted.

  “What I can’t make out,” Prexil said, “is how they reckon on feeding that many prisoners. Yes, granted, they’ve taken every damn item of food in the town, right down to walnuts and ground pepper. But that’s not going to last very long, is it? Not with a whole town on the march.”

  A sound enough man within his limitations, Prexil, but no imagination. More to the point, in Daxen’s view, was which direction the prisoners had been sent off in. Tollens stood at the junction of three roads: the Great South, which they’d just come up; the West High, which stalked off into the mountains and eventually petered out into cart tracks; and the East Military, which veered away south-east dead straight for two hundred miles before forking into the Great East and the South-East High. It stood to reason that the enemy would have sent their prisoners away under escort, so as not to impede their own progress, while their fighting men pressed on up the Great South towards the capital. Logic dictated that they should have taken the East Military, which would bring them back to the
desert in a relatively short loop. Logic also dictated that they’d be mad to go the way their enemy expected them to go, so undoubtedly they’d taken the West High; struck out west for fifty miles or so, then cut across country, rejoined the Great South at some point between Tollens and Erithry, then merrily on their way to the tribal heartlands. The more he thought about it, the more loops and tangles formed in his mind, until he despaired of the whole issue. With forty thousand men—some of the time, forty thousand was an intolerable burden, a vast multitude to feed and water and move about, like trying to carry an anvil on your shoulder; other times, it wasn’t nearly enough—detach five thousand to garrison Erithry, five thousand to cut the corn, send a thousand cavalry down the West High: if he started down that road, pretty soon there’d be no one left. When he closed his eyes he was surrounded by piles of books, all The Rise and Fall of the Kingdom of Blemya, all open at this precise moment, all different, some of them with alarmingly few pages left to go. No chance, Genseric had said; he’d sounded confident, as though he’d read to the end. No chance; don’t bother, nothing you do will really make any difference. He’d said it with such feeling—

  A sparrowhawk, hovering next to the road, on the left. You were supposed to be able to read the future by observing and interpreting the flight of birds; also the movement of stars and planets, the entrails of slaughtered animals, the fall of dice, playing cards. Was that the sort of esoteric wisdom the wise men of the craft devoted their lives to? Maybe Genseric had thrown the dice or made a detailed study of a fieldfare, and that was why he was so sure. Our scholars and theirs have been in communication for centuries. Not just their scholars, either. It seemed absurd that an Imperial could talk to these people rationally, conduct civilised negotiations with them; with these creatures of sand and darkness, who ate up whole populations and then vanished into the desert glare. Genseric had used the word respect. Bizarre. The tribesmen lived in the baking hot desert and thought the sun was God. For crying out loud. So was sweat running down your legs supposed to be some kind of sacrament?